FHE to Temple Square

My ward got together for FHE to go check out the Christmas lights on Temple Square before the lights are taken down for the year. We had a good time. We carpooled up to the Trax station in Sandy and took the Trax up.

We sang christmas songs on the Trax.

Then we walked over to a coffee shop to warm up and get hot chocolate before we went back home. It was a fun time. It was a great activity to be able to get to know the people in my ward better.

Mr. Graduated

It has been exactly one year today since I came home from doing my internship in Spain last year with U.S. Commercial Services. I can't believe how fast this past year has gone by. I remember when i came back it was just like coming back home from my mission again. It was the weirdest thing ever trying to get used to everything again.. I was mostly greatful to have a car again, and a room with heat and bed i wouldnt fall off every time i rolled over.

Since I've been home I have finished another 2 semesters of school, and i'm proud to announce to say that i'm finally finished with my Bachelors degree in communications, well that is as long as my teachers gave me a passing grade. This last semester i have been doing a lot of classes that helped me get to know more about my emphasis in public relations. Now i just have to find a job in this struggling economy.

There are a couple of local internships that i think i'm going to try and get. They pay peanuts, but i need the experience, so i'll see what happens.

As to my degree, i should get it in about 6 weeks in the mail.. sweet. Can't wait to hang it up in my room next to the associates degree.

Polar Express

For those of you who live in the Wasatch front area, you should know about the Polar Express. It's in Lindon at someone's house who has a mini train that goes not only through his property, but also around through at least 5 other neighbor's yards.

It's a free ride on a gas powered, hydrolic driven train through yards that are decorated in season. The ride even includes a stop off at Santa's in the North Pole, where you get to sit on santa's lap, then sing Jingle Bells.

The Polar Express is by reservation only, located just off of 200 S. 400 E. in Lindon. I'm not exactly sure how to make reservations, but i hear that they're already almost booked all the way up through Christmas.

The train ride is also available to first come first serve during Halloween time. I also did that a couple times this year and must say it was pretty dang cool. The train goes through like 5 or so different haunted houses. The entire neighborhood gets in on the action and helps build the haunted houses and the little kids dress up to spook people sitting on the train.

It's perfect for a family outing, or even for you and a date. The family that puts it on authentically wants to wish people the best during the season by giving back to the community. The Polar Express ride is really centered around Christ and has lots of pics of him posted all along the ride. Check it out!

Student PR Tradeshow

I have been so slacker lately with writing on my blog. I bet there are so many people out there spying in on my blog to catch a glimpse of my interesting life, but they find it's only interesting once a month. That would be so sad if some of the bloggers that i stalk did the same thing. Needless to say, im sorry for slackin... hopefully i can get around to this more often.

DEC. 3, 2008- I had the opportunity to present my project that i had been working on with my group in my student PR firm class at the Studnet PR Tradeshow. I was the account executive this semester and my group and i worked on the future success of the student firm class, and getting participation in the PR club.

I ended up pretty much doing most everything for this project because my team was way slacker. One of the main things i have been working on throught the semester is getting a webpage built for the class. I found out that the class needed to become an organization in order to get the webpage. I'm still working on a proposal that needs to be signed and approved before i can make that happen.

Other than that i have been helping to plan events for the pr club. We had some cool people come and speak to the club members this semester. Val Hale was my favorite. That guy is the man. He also ended up being one of the judges at our tradeshow. I hope he gave us a good score.

So pretty much this semester my group and i focused on doing what we could to publicize this new class and club events. The class is not yet required, but soon will be. Neither is the club large. I did learn that there are 330 students at UVU who are majoring in PR. If any of those students were smart, they would get involved with activities that will allow them to excel in this field. Being a member of a club like that is a viewed as a bonus on a resume.

Anyway, the night went well, and i headed down to the grand ballroom to goto my mom's company christmas party. She booked Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband to play, so i stopped by to get some food, and chill with my friends in the band. It was a good private show.

Facial hair gone!

During the past 3 weeks I have been sporting a full out beard. I decided that I would be Jack Sparrow for Halloween, so I needed to have the facial hair going on. It's very uncomfortable sporting a beard when you're not use to having one. It's pokey and sometimes itchy, and is the best way to scare off girls.... well some.

Jack Sparrow was a success. I went to a multi-ward activity on the 30th at Classic Skating and I had a lot of people that took pictures with me.

Then on Halloween night i went to a big dance party by BYU and ran into 2 other Jack Sparrow wanna-be's. They did alright, but I think I had them beat. The

The first thing I did after getting all of my makeup washed off was shave! Lets just say that it's good to be myself again. I can now bring the original sexy back.

Body Worlds with friends

I never got a chance to update my little bloggy from a little get together i had last week with myfriends. I went to Body Worlds in Salt Lake with my friends Dave, Matt and Mallory.

It was quite interesting to be able to see into the bodies of real people. But of course the exhibit wasn't filled with tons of these bodies you see in the advertisements. There was a good handful of them. After you see a few of these interesting bodies that looked skinned and set into posses, you kinda just get use to them. After I saw a few i felt like i've seen them all; my friends agreed with me.

It was cool to see, but i don't know if it's worth the $22 that you have to pay to get in. But at the same time it is still worth seeing at least once.

I was there for almost 2 hours. They also have other body parts and intersting things on display to look at. Each display had a little spill down of what it was, or why it was. If you are still planning on going, I would highly recommend paying an extra $5 for the audio tour, so you don't have to spend as much time reading everything. This way, you can spend more time gazing in awe at the body art.

My random Halloween story

Today i was chatting with one of my friends on msn messenger. She wanted me to tell her a story, so i thought i would be random and write a quick story. I seriously made up this story and wrote it in under 10 minutes. I thought it turned out pretty good, so i thought i'd post it. i edited a little bit to make more sense. Hope you like it. It would make a good childrens story.

juspain says: Once upon a time there was an old man who owned and farmed a pumpkin patch in his backyard.
His name was farmer John.
Every halloween season he grew pumkins and would sell most of his pumpkins to the community. He also donated a good porportion of his pumkins to a local youth charity.
Farmer john was a well respected man..well this one year he noticed pumpkins started dissapearing from his patch by the dozen evernight. He couldn't understand why, or where they were going. Farmer John suspected that someone was stealing them during the night. He even noticed smashed pumpkins in front of his house on the road. On halloween night he thought he would try to protect his pumpkins by staying up all night to keep watch.
He didn't want pumpkin bashers to come along and destroy them. Halloween night came, the night was dark, cold, and spooky. The ground was covered with old crunchy leaves that had blown off by the cold breezy wind.
John was walking around watching over his pumpkin patch. Suddenly, he noticed a crunchy noise comming from behind him. Crunch, crunch! the noise gradually grew louder. He paused for a moment. The noise went away then the crunch noise came back. It sounded as if someone was right behind farmer john. He could hear the crunch of leaves and noticed a small gurgling roar sound that seemed to come toward him. Madly scared, Farmer John turned around. He saw nothing. He sighed, but then noticed that suddenly the noise was so loud and all around him... He looked down and saw his pumpkins waddling toward him. Crunch, crunch crunch! He noticed that the small roaring sound was coming from the pumpkins.
They seemed to be alive! The pumpkins began jumping at John! John screamed like a girl, "Yikes!" John tried to run away, but the pumpkins started attacking him.
The pumpkins dominated and were victorious. John fell down to the ground gasping out, "help me!" like a helpless ant.

The next morning John's wife went out to the patch to search for him, only to find his shoe stuckin the side of an oddly shapped, enourmous pumpkin.
That's unusual she thought. Why was there only one gigantic pumpkin in the whole patch? And why was her husband's shoe stuck in it?
She reported her husband missing to the local authorities. When investigators came to investigate, they decided they needed the pumpkin for evidence.
They thought that this pumpkin was unusually big, so they decided to cut it open.
There they found Farmer John covered in pumpkin mush and seeds and half-digested inside of the pumpkin.
John had been swallowed up by one of the pumpkins that he had loved and cared for so much.
The End

Halloween in the air

The spookiest time of year happens to be my favorite time of year. For some, it's the scariest time of year, or the least favorite time of year. I Love the fall weather when it's not too cold.

The month of October is filled with opportunities to get out and enjoy activities that can't be done any other time of year.

I was going to got CornBellys Cornmaze lastnight, but the weather made it just a little too cold to be outside wondering aimlessly in a corn maze. It was in the 30's and windy. Yikes! so i decided to goto a haunted house instead. I went with my friend Beth, and we decided that we would spend about the same amount of money, but reduce the risk of getting sick by staying indoors.

Nightmare on 13th is probably the most famous haunted house in Utah. It's located on 13th south in Salt Lake City. At $20 I think that it is a little too expensive, but had some cool effects. If you haven't been to a haunted house in a few years, it would be nice to get out and see what technology has brought to the table in haunted houses. I don't want to give anything away, but it was cool to see. Unfortunatley i wasn't ever scared. Not even once, but Beth was several times, including a few scares that came from me.

I'm almost immune from getting scared in a haunted house. Knowing that you are paying to potentially get scared just doesn't cut it for me. I know what's going to happen.

Haunted houses or not, October is a time where Americans want to be spooked. Growing up, I always loved the pumpkin carving and smashing.

Another one of my earliest memories of Halloween is my memories of scary stories. The Headless Horseman is probably one of the most recognized stories.

I'm not quite sure why people like to get scared, but it's a time of year that everyone should take advantage of. It's our culture, and something kids love. I looked forward to it every year growing up, and i still do.

My weekend

This weekend has been nice chance to catch up on some relax time and hang out with some friends. On friday Dave and i bought a big plant. It was such a nice plant until it started to drip water all over our futon and put a little plant stain on our wall. So we're going to have to take it back and look for a plant that is a little more apartment friendly and doesn't pee all over the place.

On saturday night we went with a friend Bryan, and some of other friends up to the hot pots in Spanish Fork Canyon. It was funny cause I haven't been there since i was in scouts, and Bryan hadn't been there in like 2 years so he couldn't remember quite how to get there, so we wasted like an hour just looking for it. I finally found it though, after talking to like 3 different cars passing by.

The hike is about a 2 mile hike. There were quite a few people up there that seemed to be college age. Either UVU or BYU folk. It was a good time, and now i wanna go back up again during the day so i get better pics.

I also went up to Stewart Falls earlier on Saturday afternoon with a couple of friends. I didn't take any pics since i already have a bunch from up there. I guess the best part about the hike was being able to see all of the leaves on all the trees up there. Fall colors have already dominated most of the trees up there and it is always beautiful.

It's kinda weird, but the fall is my favorite time of the year. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the smell in the air... every year, around this time of year i randomly get these memories of when i was on my mission serving in Logrono, Spain. I was there in the fall of 2001 and i can totally remember walking around the boardwalk that goes along the river, and i remember how beautiful it was to see things there especially with the leaves all over. So maybe it's a certain smell that brings it all back to me. It's just a great feeling in the air that always brings back good memories.

My Condo in north Orem

This past week I moved out of my brother's house in Provo and in with my best friend Dave and his little brother Jake. We found a nice condo in north Orem.

We started moving on monday. We decided that the place could use a little bit of paint in the front room, so we asked the owners if we could paint it. Dave and I wanted a nice looking front room, so we offered to paint it ourselves if the owners paid for the supplies.. They agreed and they picked out the color, so we spent monday evening painting.

Tuesday we started the move. I borrowed a truck and trailer from work, and got all of my stuff, Dave's and Jake's in one load. It was a massive load. The truck and trailer together were longer than a bus. We stayed up late and stayed our first night in the condo.

Wednesday we finished up arranging things, and getting things set up, but that wasn't enough. We also spent most of Thursday doing the same thing.

Dave and I have been planning on moving for over a month, and have been getting furniture and things like that ready for our place. We had gone to Ikea, Shopko, Target, Walmart, Biglots, Smiths... So just about everywhere to find all of the things we needed to turn our condo into the glorified apartment that it is and feel cozy. Some things we have previously owned from living in other apartments so that was nice.

Saturday night we had our house warming party and had a bunch of friends show up. They ate all of our pizza, and rootbeer floats. Now there is no excuse for our friends not to come visit us since they now know where we live.

It's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, with a washer and dryer in one of them. I got the master bedroom by paying a little extra.. It's quite roomy with its own bathroom, balcony, and walk-in closet.

It's a good thing school hasn't been too hectic yet, other wise i would be swamped with homework. I'm finally back to the normal routine of things and working when I can and going to school. I will be finishing up my communications degree this December. I'm really excited to be done with school... hopefully forever!

I already miss not seeing my two little nieces Averie and Kaylie. It's great that they won't be able to steal my chapstick and money anymore, or hide my stuff, but i will miss being able to see them almost everyday and getting to play with them.

Boys II Men Concert at the Scera Amphitheater in Orem

Thursday night the 28th marked the return of the once Jive, motown, cooleyhigh harmony group from Philadelphia, Boyz II Men. For those who don't know much about this group they have sold over 60 million records worldwide and have earned 4 grammy awards. This was my 3rd time seeing them perform live. The last time i saw them perform was when i was in high school. Dave and I went and had seats on the floor 4th row from the stage. Matt and his wife were two rows in front of us.

The best word to describe the night is awesome. We all had a blast. The sold out crowd gave Boys II Men an overwhelming welcome. I could tell that the group was excited to see so many fanatic people so excited to see them, and i could tell they weren't faking. The even busted out their own cameras to take pics of them with the crowd in the background.

The concert was extremely loud and probably left me with some ear damage, but i'll survive. They are only a group of 3. The 4th retired in 2003 after Scoliosis kept him from doing on stage performances. So they were missing the Bass, but still kept the harmonies going strong.

They sang songs from all of their cd's, most of the well-known songs, plus they busted out quite a few Motown classics and had sweet dance moves for each song. It was great to be up front. I have a ton of pictures and video clips that i took and put some of them up onto my facebook page. The videos are the best, but they take too long to upload, so i'll just put a few photos up here.

I have a feeling that Boys I Men will be coming back to Orem someday soon.

Sunrise on top of mt. Timpanogas, 11,700 ft.

My frind Christy had a crazy idea to do some night hiking up to Mt. Timpanogas. We have made it a thing to do the 14 mile round trip hike at least once a year with our friends. Christy invited friends from her work and we all met up at the base of the mountain at 2:45am. There were a total of 14 people that began the hike.

After a third of a mile i could start to tell which ones would be falling back, and probably never make it all the way up. It's a tough hike and i don't think that anyone had an idea just what was instore for them. Well it turns out that Dave, Christy and I were the only ones in the group of 14 to make it all the way to the top. We pushed ourselves and couldn't afford spending too much time waiting for others.

We got to the saddle just in time to take some sweet pics of the city lights with a mix of moonlight and light coming from the sun on the other side of the horizon wanting to make its way up. The sky was looked twilight and was the coolest thing to see everything in that light. And the full moon made a good natural flashlight for us.

We got to the top shack about 10 minutes before the sunrise, so we made it just in time.

Along the hike up a mountain goat jumped out about 5 feet in front of me and ran down the mountain joining up with about 10 other mountain goats hanging out in a pack. It startled me, but i think it scared Dave an Christy more than it did me, and they were behind me. It was pretty funny.

All together we saw mountain goats, gophers, squirels, a snake, deer, and wild turkeys on our hike.

The hike down isnt friendly on the knees, so im still in a little bit of pain.. we made i back to the parking lot at 10am.

Work trip to Vernal Utah

This past week i went to Vernal to work.. We were suppose to be done and home by thursday night, but there was some rain that slowed us down a little bit, and not having enough help slowed us down.

So my first night in Vernal my boss forgot to get us a hotel room, so we ended up going to Walmart and bought sleeping bags and pillows and slept outside at the school that we were working on. While at Walmart i took advantage of the sink and took a bath in it. I was able to clean up somewhat before going back to sleep in the parking lot.

I tried sleeping on the grass, but the sprinklers kept coming on, and the sidewalk was getting wet too, so i ended up sleeping in the parking lot.

My dirtiest day at work.. when i operate the street sweeper i get dirty.. i took some pics so i could show you just how dirty i got.. it sucked, because i got tons of dirt in my eyes. My eyes are sensitive. Im just glad that the week is over with and i can sleep in my own bed tonight.

Wakeboarding and birthdays

This past friday was my two best friends Dave and Mike's birthday. Dave 27 and Mike 29, So Mike was cool enough to take us and Brandon out to Utah lake to do some wakeboarding. It was fun to be out with the guys and be able to hang out.. it was like good ol times.

Afterwards we went to Tucanos to get some Brazilian grub. There we ate with other good friends like Matty cakes and Creyton. So it was such a good day to be able to be with friends again that i dont hang out with much anymore. Im so glad that even after not seeing them for months that we can still be great friends and have no worries of drama. I just wish they would invite me over more often to do things.